


Oil Spreads

by CravenWyvern



Series: DS Extras [68]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Character Death, Implied Relationships, headcanons galore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25483420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern
Series: DS Extras [68]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/688443
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

Maxwell was dead.

Unfortunately, the point when Wilson would've felt really distraught was days ago, weeks even, when the food had first run out, when the twisting caverns and tunnels of the ever dipping deeper caves had finally cast them out into someplace neither recognized. 

The lichen hanging from the walls was slimier than any of the drier variants the scientist has ever come into contact with, and, having only done a few short lived experiments, it was decided fairly quickly that these specimens were not edible. The lightbulbs were few and far between, heavier and thicker in shape, lasting longer, but their light was weak, soft.

And the things in the dark prowled around them, curiously large hungry slurpers and blind sulking monkeys, slow cave spiders and dwellers that did not move even an inch unless something graced too close to their webbing, cave worms that weaved the bedrock of the walls and even lower ceilings, hunting in small packs or massive individuals going solo, always looking for food.

That, Wilson supposed, was what had really started the old man's decline. The monster meat they've been trying to live off did not sit well in him, and while Maxwell seemed to handle the cramping pains and nauseous waves of mental instability Wilson fared it far worse. The shadows had been following them for awhile, but now the darkness crowded at every waking hour, their small thrown together camp the only refuge, a home base after trying and failing to find something, any lead to get out of here, and now made to be somewhere to sleep off the eyes in the dark.

A great worm ambushed the both of them as they had tried to jab awake a silent, empty spider cave in a vain hope at finding something to eat, and the shadows soon after. With Wilson fending off the crawling nightmares Maxwell had been left to handle the cave tunnler.

In the end, he had been the one to finish off the creature, terrors nipping at his heels, and Maxwell had stumbled back to his feet from where it had nearly thrown him off the cave cliffs and made shorter work of the hungry shadows. Wilson, at the time, had thought they both got off with some fair luck, more monster meat and nightmare fuel to take back to camp, dry and use and hopefully last them a few more days of venturing farther and farther for an exit, but halfway back and Maxwell had collapsed.

Wilson had dragged the older man the rest of the way, not enough strength to even carry him properly anymore. Leaving the worm behind meant that other scavengers would get to it first, and it was a lost meal but even at this point, stretched to his mental, physical, and emotional limits, Wilson couldn't bring himself to leave the other man to the unmerciful grasp of the dark.

Neither of them have heard the sing song tune or seen the hands reaching from the darkness to the fire in a long, long while, but he knew the Grue was still out there, watching them. She was patient.

He had tried, honest to god, really tried to figure out what was wrong. Tried to help the older man, his partner through thick and thin in these terrible caves, this curious exploration gone wrong, but in the end he knew much of the injuries had to have been internal. The throw, the fall, and then adding the stress of dodging shadow teeth and claws, coupled with weeks of strain and subtle starvation trying to find a way out of this maze network of caves, and the old man wasn't going to make it.

Wilson had sat outside by the fire, the tent with his injured partner set behind him, and he had stared into those flames for a long, long time, listening to the silent ambience of the abyssal labyrinth.

And then he had gotten up, did one last check up on the unconsciousness man, the back of his clawed hand pressed to sweaty head and then, softly, from what little was left in him that these caves haven't stripped from inside himself, his hand gently cupped the others hollow cheek, bending down to lay his forehead to the others and close his eyes for a strained, terribly intimate moment.

Then he had gone out to check on the worm's corpse, knowing he'd find little left, not even enough scales scrapped of meat to haul back, only corpse bits that a few small, weak spiders still crawled about upon.

When he got back, empty handed and belly curling in on itself, a weakness settling deep in his bones, Wilson was not all that surprised to find that Maxwell had passed away.

He had paused, tent open and only the faint light of the ever fed campfire flickering in, but the silence was all he needed to know. Once he had gathered himself, quiet and well away from the tent, the edges of the dark licking at his own shadow and yet only needing the cold grounding from a cave in winter to keep himself anchored, once he let the fragile grief, little as it was at this point, seep out of him in muffled sobs and trembling waves wracking his shoulders, once it was finally drained out of him Wilson knew he had little choice left now.

It wasn't even a 50/50 chance for him finding a way up and out, back into the winter cold of sunlight, and even if he did there would be snow and blizzards and how could he ever hope at finding camp in the state he was in now? But the only other viable option he could see, right now with the darkness blinking its bleach white eyes and watching him ever so patiently, was to accept what was inevitable.

Wilson was the kind of man to take the harder choice if it was so presented, no matter what. Making peace was something done when there was nothing left, no hope; even down here, so deep and so long lost, in the back of his mind he still hoped, believed in finding a way out that was not death.

It was the only reason he had not agreed to follow Maxwell's original plan, in joint suicide as to arrive upon the surface much faster, though much more empty handed. Wilson could not willfully do that to himself when there was the slimmest of chances, of the odds possibly turning in his favor.

Now, it was 20/20 hindsight. If he knew just how long they'd be wandering down here, and how soon enough he'd find himself all on his own, alone, then perhaps he would have put more consideration in Maxwell's self destructive plan.

Be that as it may, he was here now and he needed to make the choice, call the shot.

And he was not going to just roll over and die, the easy way out and with so much to lose. The valuables they have found on this trek were useless in true survival, but if he could still get them up above, to the others…

Then perhaps he'd have the excuse to call this all worth it. And, with the touchstones still working upstairs, he knew Maxwell would appreciate having a few of those gems and thulcite made tools handed back over to his possession. The old man had seemed pleased in the beginning, acquiring the crowns and odd armors, and if Wilson could envision a point where he'd hand them over, under sunlight and to a warm welcome home camp, then this could be well worth it.

He told this to himself, even as Wilson knew the odds. The shadows outside the circle of campfire light snickered to themselves, and he turned away and started to prepare.

This wasn't what he liked to do, and he hasn't had to do it in a long while now, but it felt almost rehearsed, as the colors around him, already so faded, grew monochrome and two sided. He set out a few tools, sharper ones, razors and blades, and messily dried hide cloths and even the remains of the chugging along icebox, tearing the gears out in his claws and attempting to make a sufficient substitute for a portable icing box. He had no pigskin, but cave worm scales and old slurper hides were substitute enough, and perhaps he had enough space as to carry all that he would need for this one, last venture of a trek, a last attempt to escape the caves hold.

Next time, he knew, he'd never travel this far. The caves were hard to navigate for a reason, and, when he got back to the surface, he was going to leave these old tombs alone for a long, long time. 

Wilson was fairly certain that Maxwell would do the same. Would do the both of them some good, staying in camp and conversing under the sunlight.

...christ, did Wilson miss the sun.

With the shoddy small crockpot set to boiling water, the campfire fed a round of sparse thorny twig bushels and withered mushroom bark logs, Wilson sucked in a deep, deep breath, eyes closed as he steadied himself, and went back to the once shared tent.

He handled the body of his partner with as much care as he could, what with the weak, malnourished state he was in right now, and hauled his way over to the set aside grass and hide bed roll spread near to the fire, close enough to see but only barely there for the warmth. The thermal stones set about the ring glowed hotly, and he would need to figure a way of packing them later; the little winter clothing they had brought with them had fallen apart ages ago, another hardship in these pitch black, freezingly empty caverns. While Wilsons now half grown, scraggly beard helped a little, that had done very little for the other man, and having to resort to exclusive use of thermal stones made the ventures out of camp last even shorter than was helpful.

Wilson gently set the body down, careful with the long arms and legs that hung limply in his grip, and now there was only the faintest hint of warmth in them; a few more hours and rigor mortis will set in. Perhaps even less, what with the freezing temperatures the dark caves dipped to at times.

The face was the hard part, briefly flicking his eyes up and regretting it immediately; it was best, that Maxwell had died in his sleep, or perhaps more likely coma. He almost...almost looked peaceful, somehow, the downward tilting wrinkles smoothed neutral, the sour twist of his lips now a weak line, eyes closed without a hint of stress marking the corners and jaw not grit so tight, so tense as was a more familiar sight to Wilson.

It took a minute, feeling the empty weight in his arms, for Wilson to suck in a weak, wobbling breath, gather back that cold focus, and carefully slide the body down. He made sure to cover the face and head up with more cloth, not too tight but enough, and with the head bagged it was far easier to turn his mind onto more harsh tasks.

He's done this before, Wilson assured himself. Not to Maxwell, no, but to other strange corpses, to people he barely knew at the time, and to himself, to the cold, unfeeling flesh that had once housed himself before he got violently torn away. He knew the lines, knew the paths and review of each envisioned pattern, he knew what was to be kept and what to toss and what should be cooked charred or boiled into a bland hunk of proteins, liquid fats that would ensure his own survival to the next day, and thus the day after that, and the day after that.

Wilson knew how to butcher, and he knew cannibalism. It has saved him many, many times.

Yet, he has never had to do it to someone he knew, not to mention someone he had such a complex relationship with. Thinking of it now, staring down at the lifeless flesh and bone before him, Wilson didn't think he'd have any easier of a time if he was in this situation with any of the other people he knew, friends, family in essence.

He certainly couldn't even consider the thought of the children in this sick situation, and with that he had to shut his eyes tight, shake his head and dirty, greasy locks of hair in a wild motion, trying to jostle his mind back together, to his plan, to survival.

He didn't have much choice, and this was the option he would take for that possibility. And, it wasn't as if Maxwell could object to this anyhow.

Of the options, it was this or death.

 _Deja vu_ , Wilson thought to himself, a hint of blind hysteria and old memory, but he squished it flat and forcefully turned his view to the tools he had on hand. There was no deadline to this, not unless his own starvation was farther along than he thought, but the weight of the act itself was suffocating and he can't keep putting it off.

He's done it before, many times. He can do it again, here, now. He will survive.

...the shadows and eyes outside the firelight were laughing at him, he was sure, but Wilson put his belief into those few tried true ideals, harsh and firm and familiar.

And he got to work.

Unfortunately, he knew he couldn't do this process properly. No trees for leverage, no thick grasses for rope, and certainly no containers for blood drainage. This was going to be a quick, shoddy job; all Wilson needed was enough for a few days, to see him through a last ditch effort at escape.

And, this was the corpse of a man who had also been suffering through starvation. Maxwell was already thin, malnourished at even the best of times, and what he would be able to get from the skeleton would be a dismally small haul.

Something he already had accepted, a subtly dizzy nod to the darkness and its watching eyes as Wilson finally knelt down, tools gathered and fire blazing and task at hand.

A last, steadying drag of an inhale, a cold cavern chilled breath of air, washing through his lungs and then holding it, for a few seconds, just long enough before letting it escape him with a harsh, draining tug. No matter his thoughts, focus, ideals, this was always still a task that must be first overcome mentally; ages ago, when he had taken the first step down the Knowledge of this path, of this harsh survival tactic, it had nearly evaded him. 

Now, trial after trial, experience after experience, it only took him a minute or so to steady and balance himself enough to still the vague trembling in his hands. Having the face covered helped; it was only bone and flesh now, and meant nothing to him but another day of life.

There was a touchstone upstairs that Maxwell would awaken to, and what was left down here was just dead weight. Wilson would use it as he saw fit, and living off the remains was his last option.

He was not going to give up and die just yet, not with a choice in the matter.

With that solidified, finally nudging the leftover hesitance out of the way, Wilson flexed his claws, stretched them out as best as he could in a limber up, and turned his focus to task.

The suit jacket he brushed out of the way, curling open and briefly entertaining the thought of slipping it off but deciding otherwise a moment later. No more putting it off, and manhandling a limp corpse just to get the clothing off was a wasted effort he didn't need to put his flagging energy into. Buttons were steadily undone, and where there were none the razor at his side cut with only a hint of resistance, shallow and not enough to hit skin mistakenly. He paused at the thicker undergarments, that damn corset and the thankfully loose fitting bandaging that served only a mental purpose when the other man was alive, but getting those out of the way was done in much the same steely eyed manner.

The paleness of skin had him flag only a few extra seconds, but another shake of his head, eyes shut tight as he rattled himself back together, and Wilson spread the leftover clothing out of the way as completely as he could, leaving a bared, skeletal chest to view.

Unmoving, unfeeling, dead. Like this, vaguely a foreboding rose and, in the back of his mind, Wilson started to feel that this was quickly going to turn into a hopeless venture.

But that was still subconscious, unknowable, and Wilson shakily stood up and went to the steaming crockpot, its water not quite as foul as it had been when first found, leaking down the sides of the caverns and lingering with slimy mold growths. The taste was awful, but there have been no ill side effects as of yet from drinking its boiled counterpart.

This time, however, Wilson wasn't aiming to get a drink, and probably not for awhile with how cramped up his gut was. Instead, he took the time to dip a few of the sharper tools to the water, a minor act of sterilizing and heating the blades, not enough to cauterize but enough to hopefully help keep the cuts clean and without resistance. If he had more supplies, more space, more resources, Wilson would be doing this in a much more efficient way.

But he was not upstairs, and this was not some stranger's body or his own half torn apart corpse. He had to make do with what he had on hand, and get out of this place.

With everything hot set, or at least warmed, a brief moment brushing his numb bone talons to the hot water in a half hearted act of washing, he returned back to the corpse.

It was better to harvest limbs first, Wilson knew, gaze drifting a cold moment, but there wasn't much of anything, not even muscle, left there. Actual flesh was going to be hard to get; at this point, it would have to be organ meats he'd need to take first.

For a brief, flashing moment, he almost flagged again with the pinprick of _this is Maxwell_ entering his head, but Wilson shook himself and tossed the thoughts away from his mind, clamping down. He's been through this before, many times; it did not matter who or what was ever on the receiving end, because death had already occured. Waste not, want not.

And Wilson was not going to die here. _This, or death_ , little nagging thought that it was, and Wilson made his choice.

This time when he held the razor, raised it up as he leaned closer, focused, his hand did not shiver or shake. He knew what he was doing.

A cut copying old remembered dissection lines, now long modified with his own experience with other cadavers. Human skin was so much thinner than one oftentimes thought; Wilson has cut through pink bristled pig skin, the fatty blubber of walrus flesh, skinned and plucked tufts of thick rabbit fur, scraped the slimy scaling and odd layering of merm hide. Even his own skin had a thickness to it he often paused at, the darkened flesh of his arms that crept up past his elbows. 

Not like the shadows of fuel use, no, but something far deeper than the skin. After that first time cutting into his own dead flesh, Wilson did not try to think of it, not anymore.

Now, the incision went easy, his hand and bone claws holding steady. The lettering of a Y, long from the bony pale shoulders and then curving subtly before meeting together, then sliding down. Not all the way, as a proper autopsy, but Wilson was not...he wasn't keen at revealing more than he had to. 

Avoiding taking off the trousers, cutting lower, and he already had what he wanted to gather in mind. A few nutrient rich organs, maybe a bit of flesh strung bone if he decided to saw away limbs, just enough to see him through. That was all he needed.

And, even if this was just a corpse, very dead, Wilson couldn't help but think that Maxwell would have appreciated the privacy. The man could be such a prude sometimes.

Shaking the thoughts away, focus, he had to _focus_ , and Wilson took a moment to breath. Faint hints of blood bubbled up from the incision, but not enough to worry so much. Again, draining would have been more preferred, but he didn't have the luxury or time to waste.

And, as he knew rather well, Maxwell bled out rather slowly. 

This thought, acknowledgement, didn't quite settle as a red flag, so familiarly well known and misunderstood as Wilson knew of it. It was not a conscious thought, and thus not consciously questioned.

He tilted the razor, dipped it underneath one section of the higher up cut skin, right below the throat, tilted and used the tips of his bone claws as to pinch together and then peel away in a slow, methodical motion. Holding it, using the razor once more to shear through the connection, and then Wilson set the skin aside to a spread hide fabric. Two more times he did this, as to expose the inner chest, and there was a bit of trouble maneuvering some of the flesh but, with the overall lack of fat build up and sagging of age, eventually it was the dark crimson of muscle and tendons, thin membranes and the white bareness of bone that laid before him, a cavity of organic matter.

Idly he scraped the lingering strands of membrane away, the spotting of cut veins barely there, an unknown thick stillness to the blood that Wilson had not realized as of yet. Now, with the flesh removed, it was hardly a mental feat to continue, especially not much of a moral one. The remnants of familiarity were stripped away, and this was just a normal corpse, flesh and bone for him to use to expand his own life forward, and Wilson let out a soft exhale and felt the monochrome nightmare world steady a bit.

He will not die here.

To expose the inner organs he needed to break bone, and the razor was not cut out for that. At his side, not quite improvised and more just an overlarge hunting knife, the blade was still warmed and his claws only stained it a faint bit, a darker crimson that Wilsons eyes passed over in acute, distracted focus. 

He did not aim for the sternum; instead, to the cartilage between breastbone and ribs, and then carefully cutting, slowly sawing through the resistance he met there. It wasn't as hard as he had thought it would be, passing with only a bit of effort and steadying his hand as to not cut through and hit anything underneath, and then continuing downwards till the last true rib connection. The top of the sternum, snapping the clavicles, and then dislodging the last bit of stranding flesh that kept it together, and then Wilson set aside the blade.

He spread his claws, only faintly stained still, and carefully got a firm hold to the thicker set bone before, with even more care, he peeled it up and out. The cut ribs bore out like curved claws, bits of cartilage still clinging to the ends, but only a faint shimmering strand of membrane stretched between bone and body before slipping free, ending that connection.

He set the plate of bone and cartilage to the side, eyes staring as to not drop, mishandle it, and finally refocusing back to the now exposed inner organs of the cadavers chest cavity.

It was the lungs that caught his eye first. There were no buildups of fat, no fatty tissues or evidence of such, only what he assumed to be the thin skins of membrane, stretched and clipped a bit from his work on the ribs. Pale, and slightly liquid filled, and Wilson couldn't help the curl of disgust on his face as he peered at the odd organic membranes, before he focused more fully upon the lungs.

Those were very starkly inedible, especially with the state they were in. Blackened from years of tobacco use, curdled raw from the side effects of cigar smoke, and there may be no nicotine like substances out here in the Constant but Wilson knew the long former Nightmare King had made do. Evil flowers and mandrake root, usually buddied up with Wes in personal projects, but it wasn't as if Wilson could just tell him to knock it off, go cold turkey _again_.

Death was inevitable, and who was he to ban those few leisures, destructively health wise as they were? As long as no one was blowing smoke in his face Wilson was tolerant.

Still, not a kind sight to see what the actual smoke ended up doing to the inner body. As he raised his claws, having already acknowledged that there was no suitable glove replacement and honestly his bone talons, nerveless, did not even need to be covered for this, Wilson went about carefully scooping the organs up and out from the chest cavity.

Somewhat larger than he had initially thought, as if swollen; they caved a bit under his careful hold, seeping drops of crimson blood as he cut the long cord that was pulled out with it, and that odd liquid membrane sloughed off in slippery chunks. The diaphragm was not as healthy as he's more used to seeing it, dull and almost wilted even, and as he removed the limp waste organ that thick blood came in to fill the space, flooding the rest of what was here.

But, not enough to cover what the engorged lungs had been hiding.

Wilson had to pause, one set of inedible organ flesh off at his side next to the rib chest plate, and suddenly the realization of how _wrong_ the varying fluids looked really started to set in.

For one, that thick blood he had just thought of as dark crimson was more...lacking that red hue now. It seemed almost gelatinous, shimmering oddly and streaking the pale flesh and the snapped rib bones with a ghastly grey stain.

For two, there was the heart.

It sat there, shrunken and shriveled almost, a pale darkness that had no shine to it, overshadowed by what space the sickly lungs had taken and the thick consistency of flooding blood. It didn't seem to matter what was vein or artery, pulmonary, inferior, or superior; the aorta was pitch black, slimy compared to the crumbled dryness of the ventricles, and all of it was a rotten bruising of blacks and grays, no other hint of healthy color in between.

The veins and arteries that branched out from it, some punctured and slowly bleeding out that thick sludge still, were just as blackened, just as putridly dark, swollen in some places, engorged with the fluids, and dried thin in others, pasted to the walls of the chest cavity, entangled with the rest of the organs, rotted deep throughout the whole corpse even.

Wilson sat back, staring at what he had inadvertently unearthed. At his side lay what he had taken out, and that, too, had the dark gray marks of the cut veins, overcoming the red of true, sickly blood and becoming tar like, streaking like oil paints down the cut away flesh and bone. The lungs, choked from ages of smoke and abuse, had hid it all away, and so too had the crimson speckled blood, which now, cut away so close to the wilted heart, was pitch black and reminiscent of something else he was far too familiar with to think the comparison comfortable.

The thread of half understood anxiety, cushioned panic, had him scraping his claws together, which then led Wilson to slowly raising them up and giving them a blank, wide eyed look.

The nightmare fuel had streaked to his bone talons, pooled a bit to his darkened palms, no temperature, little texture, unremarkable in all the ways this oil usually was, save for that he had just found it absolutely coating the insides of a man he knew very well. Not just exterior, no, pumped through the vessels and spreading in pulses from the core of the heart, reaching throughout the entire body even, mingling with what little blood was left, dark and bruised pale as it was.

Wilson sat, still and quiet, and his own exhaustion, the stress and strain of his body and mind, amplified by the sheer willpower he had to exert to do something as morally gray as this only to find out something even worse, it blew wide open that threatening edge that the caves have been promising, over and over, in the deep of nights and the deepest of shadows.

He couldn't eat this, Wilson knew, staring down at the now well opened, secretless cadaver. He couldn't eat any of it.

A few steps into the darkness would be the end of him, no matter how fast or far he pushed his flagging self. There was nothing left he could do, no left or right, up or down.

His options have died, and so too will he.

Outside of the now fading firelight, the eyes in the dark squinted in dark humors and snickered, softly, at the utter hilarity of wastefulness.


	2. Chapter 2

Wes was dying.

The dirt under his feet was dry, harsh sandstone that dusted up with every stumbling step, and Maxwell pushed on, carrying the leaden weight upon his back with as much dignity as he could afford.

Which wasn't much, with blood soaking through his suit and dripping behind them in a grotesque trail. A part of him, squashed down by his physical exhaustion, was mildly irritated at that; blood was hard to clean, stained clothing something terrible, and with the state both men were in he was fairly certain his entire suit wasn't going to make it.

Neither was the mime, for that matter. Roughened gurgled breaths against his neck, the sticky feeling of more blood and the dragging weight of a limp body, and Maxwell frowned, which almost dropped into a harsh scowl as he forced his shaking legs to keep moving, one step at a time. The hounds had really done them both in, and the further he could get away the higher chance he'd survive.

From the sounds of it, Wes was a lost cause.

He didn't know how far he really did get, away from the caved in hollow of bones and sun dried, mummified corpses, the hound dens that stretched far underground in networks that skewered the surface in the gullys and canyons that drifted the desert and forests. Eventually the weight was too much, the chilly air was too much as he huffed and puffed, and Maxwell wobbled to a stop near an overhang, the faintest bit of shelter as the rock walls around them both stayed standing, stayed dragging on uselessly before them. It might be many more miles before they'd find a way up that didn't require climbing.

Or only a few minutes, but Maxwell didn't get his hopes up, as pessimistic as he was. Wes was dying, and they were lost in the maze network of a hounds canyon.

At the very least they were above ground. When the earth had first crumbled under their feet, not just sand but bone shards and loosely packed mummified animal corpses, sun baked and eroded by time, the chamber underneath had been dark and dry. 

And filled with sleeping wolves. The grand entrance of two survivors falling through the roof woke them almost immediately, and whether it was the bright red sweater or just the dogs plain, entirely reasonable dislike for a clown, Maxwell himself had only suffered a few bruises and bone aches, nips and tugging bites at a bare minimum as his shadow armor was torn to shreds in substitute; Wes, however, had been torn into with a ferocity that had Maxwell not quite willing just yet to blame the poor fool for this whole mess.

Neither had known that the hound tunnels were directly under their feet, carrying their footsteps through the pack dens that the wolves dug deep, and the desert sands had always looked the same, from the sliding dunes of the oasis to the packed high heat of the Dragonflies abode. The tunnels scratched into the sun baked earth and dug deep, home to hound litters and Varg packs and wolf clans, were largely undisturbed and unexplored by the other survivors for some very good reasons, and it was entirely by accident that the two men had tripped into the nest in the first place. 

The shadow clones summoned earlier were dead now, Maxwell could feel that, in the pit of his chest and the sore creaking ache of his limbs, every beat of his pulse, but they had kept the dogs off them and distracted enough to allow the two a stumbling quick get away.

With him fairly uninjured, or at the very least not bleeding out profusely and in danger of passing out due to blood loss, Maxwell was in a far better state than the other man.

At least it wasn't full winter. Late autumn, very late autumn, yes, but the frost on the ground was weak and only an inch or so, and the air hadn't turned too deadly. The lone thermal stone in Maxwell's jacket pocket was good enough for him, though he was fairly certain Wes had lost his in the chaos. 

Still, evening had only just arrived. Night wasn't going to sneak up on them anytime soon.

It was only a faint gratitude for that though, as Wes was still bleeding and Maxwell was still aching and they were both miles from camp with no medicinal supplies to boot.

They had come out here for just that sliver of chance at catching something, gathering anything at all to haul back to the others. While Maxwell would have much rather stayed behind, attending to fruitless tasks and chores that did not require him to move or use his wasting energy, in the end near everyone had been sent out for this one effort.

Food stores have been depleting all too steadily for all too long, no matter what steps were done to either preserve or ration the last of it out, and while Maxwell wasn't the only one running empty right now he was also the only one who hadn't been entirely ravaged by hounds. Wes hadn't been getting by well either, judging from the severe lack of balloons and general mischief about camp, and Maxwell got a good feel for the weight loss the entire time he had been forced to drag the man out of danger.

It didn't matter much, not really, not with the state both of them were in. Even if they found a way out of these canyons, Maxwell doubted that they'd come back to a camp stocked up and welcoming to their empty hands. 

That didn't at all mean that Maxwell was ready to throw in the towel. Wes was dying, and he wasn't.

A very big difference there, one that was nagging and biting and nipping to the back of his mind, cloying implication in the thin veins of the shadows influence. For all the lack of strength his body had from malnutrition, the pounding headache at the backs of his eyes and the flipping nauseated fever caused by overusing the shadows was more straining him right now.

He swayed a moment, under the rocky overhand and the barren waste of the canyon all around him, scraggly weeds and brush and that faint few scrapes of ice that had frozen over most of the rock face and surface, before without much flair or care he let the other man slip off him with a heavy thud.

Not even a minute passed before Maxwell near joined him, sliding to his knees, a painful ache settling to his straining joints and limbs, but all he could do was let his eyes flutter closed and take in deep breathes, combat the rattling, fatigued wheezes, forcefully wrangle his mind back into balance.

No matter the faint hints of shadows following them, following the mimes trail of bright blood, Maxwell would not let Them sink their teeth into him. Not here, not now; dying in the hounds labyrinth was the farthest from his to do list.

While his own wounds were shallow mockeries compared to the mime's, the hounds had been vicious with the shadow clones. The phantom aches and pains will haunt him for days to come, the overuse and overstrain a worm of nagging pain, a leech that would feed off him until the local airs and presence of familiarity would allow him to recover. Even then, lack of physical strength, of energy and time in the slowly freezing temperatures, Maxwell did not doubt that the shadows will cling to him as tightly as They can, haunt him for the next many odd days.

"Think twice on not bringing a spear with you next time, will you?" His breath was still wheezing, strained, but when Maxwell turned his head to glance over at the other man it was still ever so obvious that he had gotten off easy. "...Not looking so good there, pal."

Wes gargled silently at him, flat on his back and mostly unmoving, blood staining through the frozen dirt and sand, following the rivets and dips of the rocky earth, to join in the growing pools their stumbling drag had created in their wake. His sweater was soaked through, haphazard patterns seeping through the very fabric and darkening it considerably, and Maxwell hesitated only a few extra seconds to take it all in before scooting closer, leaning over with an unreadable, mostly scowled expression on his face. His gloved hands ghosted over where the injuries were, shoulders and sides, littering the limbs, and he supposed it was more the outpouring of blood from the left leg that would eventually do the other man in.

Unlike many of the others, Wes was incredibly resilient, in that flexible, problem solving way. He was also incredibly fragile, and, deep in these gullies and so far from what little help he himself was ever offered, Maxwell knew distinctly that he could do nothing.

"...serves you right for not thinking ahead, I suppose." 

The lack of a spear or weapon of any sort had been a misstep on both their parts, but perhaps there had been some trust put into Maxwell's expertise and mostly ever alert paranoia a little too much. The nightmare fuel in his arsenal may be abundant and useful, but all he had been able to do was have the clones drive off the hounds, beat them back from circling and open that escape route, keep the distraction going in the meantime. Here, however, the oils did not heal, and could not prevent further injury.

Faintly the other man's chest moved, shallow fast gasps as he bled out, silent all the way as he stared up at the ceiling of the rocky overhang and its dusty hints of roots and debris scattered about its sandstone surface, glazed wide eyes and blood peaking from the corners of his lips, trailing down as the man worked on a rough swallow before giving up, or perhaps losing the strength to do so. Maxwell watched him, dark eyes narrow and still, hands going to his lap and finally getting his own breathing to settle low and normal, the flash of earlier adrenaline dissipating in one long heaved exhale, a strained, defeated sigh. 

For all his aches and pains, it was obvious who had it worse. Wes was dying, and it looked as painful as it always did, no matter the happenstance.

"...You don't want to die like this, do you?" Maxwell shifted a bit, raised his hand to ghost over the man's forehead, thin hair plastered to his head and face with blood and sweat, thick makeup smeared in a god awful mess of a nightmarish impression. For a brief moment he slid his thumb down the man's cheek, a softness to the wrinkles and colored paste, the white sticking to his glove as Maxwell observed the wide eyed, pain glazed expression. Staring right through his looming form, blank and gasping for air like a fish out of water, bleeding out with nothing left to show for it. "No, a bit much for someone like you I take it."

Memory served a bit harsh nowadays, especially now that whatever was left in his chest ached along with the rest of it all, and yet Maxwell only frowned, a drag to his old face as he leaned back a bit, started to dig into the pockets of his suit jacket. The man before him, like many of the others, has died in this way too many times to even attempt to count.

"At least you have a bit of company, yeah?" He flashed a snaggletoothed smile, lacking the effort he couldn't quite catch now that he was away from the Throne. A few seconds of silence passed as his grin flagged, bared more like a snarl, and with that he flicked out the razor he had hidden away in the inner pockets of his jacket, as he has always placed it, blade gleaming in the faint sunlight. "But, I suppose that company being me is not quite a comfort, is it pal?"

Wes gave no response of course, his every breath straining, still fighting that good fight, to continue amongst the living, and with his smile wilting at the corners, finally dropping into a toothy harsh frown, Maxwell dragged his gaze to the razor. 

He ran his gloved hand to the flat of the blade, eyed its cleanliness lacking blood from any earlier use, though he hasn't actually touched it in a while. Hasn't found the time, no, not with imminent starvation and worry and stress over the others, the tired out children and the ragged, exhausted stares of the rest of the survivors.

Winter wasn't even in full swing, and here everyone was, already whipped near to death by its early winds. There was very little time or energy to think of selfish desires, when the hope was so thin and food so hard to come by, harder to share, even harder to give up and ensure the youngest survived another day.

A long, quiet breath, that stinging numb ache of the shadows and the darkened monochrome of the worlds colors, only the mimes sweater and blood that blazing neon red, the smear of paint blush to hollow soft cheeks, and Maxwell let his eyes close for a few seconds. There was no calm, not with Their presence heavy and enfolding, but the numbness has always done him so well in the past that it was second nature, to welcome it in and collar it to his use.

Enough time for one last steady breath, aching soreness and phantom shadow influence lessening Their heavy grip, forced to his own willpower and none else, and Maxwell hands tightened about the razor, this tool that has sat in his pockets for too long, been in his hands and of use for his own selfish purposes, now finally to be used for a better reason.

With it in hand and acceptable to form, Maxwell suffered no more dragging time and leaned over, raised the blade, and slit the other man's throat.

For a second there Wes' eyes seemed to grow larger, a silent gape as his ravaged hands twitched, but the glazed, blind look still held even as the blade cut fully through thin skin, the inklings of softened face paint before overshadowed by bright blood. A bit splashed out to his gloves, more stains, but Maxwell paid no mind, other hand already going up to cover the man's eyes, setting the razor aside in the bloody sand and rock as he finished the deed.

With a hopefully companionable grip to the shoulder, one mostly unmarked by hound teeth, a last light squeeze in mock comfort as blood bubbled up from the new wound, a half choked sound as the man shuddered-

-and with even less of a send off Wes died.

Maxwell waited a few minutes more, silent and watchful, hand still covering the face, before with a sigh he drew back. 

Not before carefully closing the eyes, a brief, almost gentle touch really, but it was more for his own comfort. They always looked so accusing if they had their undead sight, and the gazes always ended up following him, no matter where he went.

There was only a whisper of faint half movement, pale mist, before that dissipated in the chill air. Darting back to the camps effigies, no doubt, and hopefully the silent man did not remember this last act.

A parting gift even, though Maxwell knew the others would not see it this way. Ending Wes' life to prevent that long, drawn out death by exsanguination, especially out here in the cold, in dreary hopeless company; it was a mercy in Maxwell's books, but he knew to not expect understanding outside of himself.

They always tried to fight to the end, no matter the odds or pains. A waste, really, of time and place, but he supposed they wouldn't appreciate his comments in the matter. 

Which was why he took it upon himself here, instead of waiting it out. A lack of suffering, he thought, glancing over the other man's still face, the blood pumping from his cut throat finally slowing to a near stop.

The rest of it was starting to coagulate in the chilly air, Maxwell eyeing the darker spotting of clot attempts, thick clods of sand and dirt, muddying up with that thin layer of half melted ice. The silence now was much heavier than before, a lead weight to enshroud the sullen canyon, and now he was alone.

If he remembered correctly, someone once told him that that was never a good thing for him. Probably Higgsbury's words, no doubt, and Maxwell briefly wondered if he would be at camp, get spooked by Wes' revival and then worried about the ensuing consequences that such a thing entailed. 

Then again, it was more likely that the mime will wake alone, to an empty camp; the effigy birthed mock body will at least not be starving any longer, so Maxwell had to give the other man that.

The body still layed there before him, the chill making it go stiff far faster than it would have naturally, and already he could smell the stink of it, open wounds and heady bright blood and that scent of corpse death.

For all the times every survivor has died or seen death in this place, so many of them seem to have fair trouble identifying these familiar odours. Experience told him that many have grown calloused to the stench, or so familiar with it that they never even noticed, and yet Maxwell, knowing he should be in a similar position, found himself curling his nose and turning a glare down to the corpse instead.

The chill air, having deadened that dusty wind that would blow the smell of the hounds through these twisting canyon paths, only seemed to intensify the smell of death.

It would grow thicker, Maxwell knew, if he stayed here. 

It would probably grow thick even if he dragged himself to his feet, forced his flagging strength to take him elsewhere, try to scour a way out from these rocky cliff faces. In all honesty, he may have shown the other man a buried mercy but Maxwell was unsure if he'd suffer such a quick, semi painless fate.

...Not if he found a different route, of course.

Something in his body, besides the chronic aches and shakes and rattle to his lungs, cramped up, twisted viciously enough to send him light headed and curling as to avoid the nauseous upheaval. A good few minutes passed, as Maxwell sat back from the blood soaked sand and pulled his legs up close and had his arms wrapped about himself, eyes shut tight as he roughed out the wave of starving pains.

Adrenaline and stress have kept him from feeling it so starkly, but now he was alone and hopelessly lost, accompanied by only a corpse.

Maybe he shouldn't have shown some mercy. Maybe he should have forced the other man to stay alive long enough for his own want of company; long enough for him to start to succumb to the pains of his physical body giving up. 

His heart pounded hard in his ears, pain blooming from his chest and arcing up and down his spine, enough know how in him, listening in to Higgsburys "science" lessons as he taught the children ages ago, to understand what was happening and to hate it just as much. His own body, rebelling against him, eating itself alive; Wilson was always remarking on how thin he was, how little weight he seemed to hold, and that seemed to be stabbing him in the back now.

The razor sat there in the sand, blade bloody and bright, an odd, familiar faced mockery he knew of all too well.

And yet, Maxwell did not want to die here, gaze sliding from its familiarity, ignoring its cold, cruel promise.

There was selfishness in this, knowing the mimes bones would be added to the hound mounds but not wishing for his own to join the pile, and after the wave of lapping hungers pulled away, enough so that it was only the faintest tremble to his arms, a weakness building and overlapping thick and high through his nerves, Maxwell finally uncurled himself and sucked in a faint, wavering breath of air. The cold chill, compounded now by the dull thermal stone in his pockets, pressed uncomfortably against his chest, might end up doing in his frail, collapsing body anyhow, and again, something resentful filled in the gaps when he looked down upon Wes' face.

Not quite peaceful, no, but softer, lax without the strain of shocked pain. Even as messy and bloody as the man had gotten, his paints still held, smeared and grotesque but still framing that unfortunately familiar face.

Wes had gone deep into, below the Constant, Maxwell knew. Dug too deep, breached through the planes of various worlds, digging and walking and forcing himself through the shell layers of shadow, slipping into the last few realms, aiming for that unreachable core.

Maxwell still had a faint remembrance, faded, of soft hands brushing the arms of the Throne, the barest phantom memory of touch, contact, and the curious quietness from Them as the barren Epilogue was brought to light, given new breath for the first time since its very birth. 

It hadn't stayed quiet for long, and Wes had faded, descending far too deep, leaving the Throned King alone once more.

Like now, he supposed, and Maxwell adjusted himself, automatic shaky movements as to brush the dust from his blood soaked suit, looking down upon the corpse. Off to camp with Wes, and here he was still, trapped with the hounds and not yet willing to accept death.

No matter how it was certainly coming for him, in starvation and cold exposure. Night wouldn't be taking him either, not with its looming so far away. The evening, sun only just now tipping from its highest arc, and the canyon was filled with shadow and cold, dark reflected lights. In a few hours time Maxwell was sure his every exhale would be marked by foggy clouds of warmed air, visible and a warning.

Unless he was dead by then. He squinted his eyes as his body shook, a minor wave of cramping, gnawing pains, and Maxwell just-

...he didn't want to die, damn it. One of those few times he was against the idea, and of course his options seemed so limited, so empty of any of that hope the others looked for so often.

All he had was a few smatterings of nightmare fuel, his dwindling mental prowess as he suffered the residual, dragging damage of what had happened and what was still happening, and this torn up corpse, stretched wide upon the ground before him.

Just him, alone and on his way out, and a body of flesh and bone, ravaged as it was.

Maxwell stared at it, ignored the faint half shimmering imagery of the monochrome world and its slithering, spying shadows, bleach white eyes watching from the faint shadows cast by the rock walls.

For a moment his unsure resolve shook, the briefest remembrance of the razor he had set to the side, still painted with the other man's blood.

But, this was not the place Maxwell wanted to die in. Not some barren, scraggly hollow of a canyon, the faint sandy paw prints from ages ago that went back and forth, well trodden roads of the wolves. The thought, of his bones once more joining to the piles of hound trophy and mounds, it left his weakening body with a deep seated, bitter knot to settle in his chest. 

_Maxwell did not want to die._

The corpse, flesh and bone and drying drained blood, sat before him with no objection whatsoever, and after a few silent moments, unbroken in the early winter ambience, Maxwell's face twitched, twisted into something that was more a grimace than a genuine smile.

It was not as if Wes would ever find out. What one did not know would not hurt them, as the saying goes, and Maxwell shifted, slow and steady as he hovered and faintly trembled and forced away the apprehensive nature of the shadows. They were all circling, all just as hungry as he, watching and waiting, and Maxwell will not give Them the satisfaction They craved from him if he could help it.

He reached once more to his pockets, the cold weight of blood logged fabric making his movements a bit uneven and discomforted, but the idea was already in mind and half baked plan already in action. 

He wasn't going to roll over and die here, alone, and there was his opportunity right before him, his last chance.

It wouldn't be much, he already knew, but just enough to allow him to continue on, drag himself out of these canyons and stumble his way back to camp, to its expected cold reception and unsympathetic looks. He certainly didn't expect Wes to greet him favorably, that was for sure.

Still, enough to get his legs underneath him. The nausea will be a drawback, he's not eaten in too long, but Maxwell had experience with that, with getting so little for so long before overindulging.

Then again, this wasn't going to give him as much as he'd truly like. Wes was starving, just like him, and it had shown when they had been assaulted by the hounds; the mimes skillful flexibility had crumbled under the strain of many foodless days, and he had suffered the consequences through hound teeth and claws.

Maxwell called himself lucky, but it was truly his foul blood, the overuse of shadows that got him through; the nightmare armor had absorbed so many scraping, gnawing teeth, and his bleed out had stopped long before now, stopped near instantly the moment they had stumbled up from the underground dens and tripped and slid through the piles of bone and mummified animal corpses, while Wes had bled and bled and just continued to _bleed_.

Perhaps that would help, Maxwell thought almost idly to himself. One was meant to drain the fluids before starting, after all.

He was no Higgsbury, he had such little expertise in this, but Maxwell had his few experiences before now, enough to give him the general idea and confidence to see it through.

He'd not die here, if he can help it, and what Wes did not know nor realize what happened would not hurt the man. As if anyone would be down here to catch Maxwell red handed, literally.

Nightmare fuel slicked across his gloved hands as he pulled them away from his pockets, spreading his fingers as the oils quivered and drooled between the seams of his gloves, seeping a numbing static through the parts where the leather has grown thin and worn. With a flick of his wrists, a few splatters of fuel drizzling to the sand and flecking the drying spilled blood, the nightmare oils shimmered and formed into the mock shape of his own hands, each finger just barely visible through the black smokey gelatin that coagulated into a harsher, much sharper copy.

He thankfully did not need the Codex for this, stowed away and quiet now from its sudden overuse of the doppelgangers earlier in the deep dens. This, these talons of nightmare fuel that slung tight to his own hands, seeping lower as to flood underneath the gloves and buzz static to his numb skin, curl almost soothingly about his wrists, it was almost too easy to command, mold to his own determined will.

He did not need Them for something as straight forward as this, hovering and watching as They already were. 

Leaning over the corpse, cold and stiff and empty, Maxwell eyed the rugged, blood soaked sweater that hung limp and folded dirty, meshed with grains of sand and pebble rocks and that clotted thick blood.

And then he took his hands, coated and molded in nightmare oils, and easily tore it in half, dark enlarged talons slicing straight through with no resistance at all. Brushing the damp fabric away, off the corpses chest and into the dirt, and Maxwell vaguely eyed the scarred, torn flesh that was now laid out before him. 

The quicker he did this, the less energy he wasted, the faster he may get out of this place. The acknowledgment, that he had no fire, no tools, no sensible options before him besides death, it mattered so little now that he had gotten started.

The shadows outside his vision watched, always so patient, and the oils coating his hands into the blackened talons, a faded memory of the Throne, of what his own sights had created for him, before Maxwell snapped himself out of the fatigued trance, a shake of his head and that slow heave of almost nausea to roll inside himself.

He had to be focused for this. He was not nearly as experienced as the others in this sort of thing, the art of butchery, but the nightmare fuel was precise and his memory, or imagination, will guide his hand.

He will not die here today, and Maxwell was not going to let himself suffer an empty stomach when opportunity was right before him.

Said opportunity was a mess, torn and ripped and, now it was so obvious, how wasteful it had been for Maxwell to drag the man out from the hounds teeth. While Wes would have most certainly died to the puncture in his leg, it seemed that his sweater hadn't protected him from the chew marks and gaping chunks missing from just under the ribs, the grotesque picture stilling his hands and his slick fuel talons, a pause in the numbing focus and the shivers of cold and pain that still lapped close to his strained nerves.

It explained the level of gore that had soaked into the sweater, the bright trail that had painted itself behind them when he had been still struggling forward. Maxwell gave the thick fabric a last, long look, the thin clawed talons of nightmare fuel picking up the frayed edges between index and thumb, before he dropped it back to the blood soaked ground, a sodden thwump that seemed to echo in the chilly barren emptiness. 

Perhaps it should have been armor he admonished Wes of, not the lack of a spear. Too late for that now, and foresight was always 20/20, wasn't it?

Now, as he turned his attention back onto flesh and skin, the hidden bare jut of bone that fit tight to Wes no matter the circumstances, no matter the muscle mass or the many well fed days the survivors have lived through in better, not so cold times. There was a weight here, as Maxwell eyed the injuries and the splattering stains of blood, even through the thick and thin of starvation the mime still managed to keep a fair bit of flesh to his ribs. The wounds were unavoidable, but if he was careful with the fuel, careful where he cut and twisted and tore out…

Maxwell raised a fuel dripping hand, talons extended, and gently started to slide the dark blades down, from top of collarbone to low, just above the belly button, the blood soaked remains of trousers.

The skin cut like butter, the nightmare fuel staining and then dribbling the slides of flesh, leaving faint steaming smog as the oils reacted to the cooling blood, still warm in the core of the torso, and, spreading both hands with talons extended, lengthening and sharpening almost impossibly, Maxwell cut the skin along the chest, peeling it back and away in messy shapes, lines. The wounds, teeth shredding and skids of claws, the tear of forceful shaking and lashing out, rippled with clot tissue and oozed fresher blood, the corpses skin going bruised in places and chill with the late cold, it all parted under the fuel, under his talons, and Maxwell had to pause a few moments after, hovering over the corpse and its slow flaying of skin.

For all the cold out in the air, the insides were still warm. There was a faint current of steam, rising and dissipating in the chilly air, and the thermal stone in Maxwell's pocket felt a block of ice now, pressed against him and scouring away the faint threads of his own inner heat. Before him was the stench of blood and gore and heavy death, familiar in the worst of ways that almost, kept almost rising memory to his mind, from the Throne and the shadows and the ever watching Them.

After a moment, a faint trembling to his limbs as he loomed, as he took in shallow, repulsed breathes, forced himself to, Maxwells shaky, fuel laden talons went to his jacket, ducked inside, and pulled out the frozen cold thermal stone, blue and iced from the temperature.

Holding it in one hand, Maxwell hesitated, dark eyes flickering about the half revealed insides of the corpse, its heat that would slowly dissipate into chilly air, the stench that would eventually be covered by winter scentlessness. 

The blank, neutral glaze of the face made Wes look almost calm, at peace, closed off and long gone to the world. As Maxwell eyed the corpse, a faint lingering of half remembered Throne time graced his aching chest and making his dark eyes glitter, faint odd memories with his fuel laden talons dipped with blood, and he raised a nightmare oiled hand to linger on the deceased's chin, grip light and slight tilt even lighter. The limp way he maneuvered the head, that lolling ease as it moved upon its neck, and for a moment his blank thoughts almost entertained breaking into that skull and finding out what was really going on in there.

But the cold and the corpse heat and stench rolled over him once more, a shuddery repulsion settling to the back of his throat, and Maxwell let the corpses head go, the slight roll as the peaceful face tilted away from him. The shivering world seemed to stabilize as he took a breath, eyes closed to the monochrome two color landscape, and when he opened them again the Constant was less pale, less far away as the color bled back in pastel smears.

He had to be careful, doing this. The shadows were watching, ever watching, and They will not be leaving him to his own business anytime soon.

His other hand reached over, then paused, talons stretched as he eyed and hesitated and forced himself to keep taking those foul laced breaths, forced himself to wrangle the dark shadow nerves that were trying to settle upon him, force his will to a stubborn forefront.

It wasn't the fact that this was Wes, that this was a human being before him, or at least it's empty discarded corpse. It was more the sheer disgust that kept gracing him, his inner nausea from fuel overdose and physical strain, the toll his body was going through finally catching up.

The hesitance, however, didn't last long as another shudder made his arms tremble, another deep breath of the stench of death that was slowly going easier to his senses, and with that Maxwell splayed his claws and slipped them into the gut laden organ matter that still remained whole and mostly unprotruding from puncture injuries, the slippery flesh of the intestines and compiled torn meats under the ribcage.

He was no scientist, was not Wilson in the man's knowledge of such a thing as anatomy, but yet the inner heat flooded over the numb static of the fuel, coated his talons in the blood and fluids and the pierced membrane he had hardly noticed passing through, and when the thermal stone was slipped inside it adjusted with only a bit of wiggling on his part, wrapped and coated by the worm like lengths of intestine tissue. Already he could see the textures of the stone warm, gain a heat from the corpses own temperature, and with a shuddery sigh and that ghastly filmy scent on his tongue Maxwell sat back a moment.

The cold rushed in absurdly fast, he had been leaning so close and the warmth had been easing the chill from his face, but now he can feel the acute frozen air around him, laden weight of his sticky blood soaked clothes and the strain of exhaustion that threaded through his very nerves.

The effect on his hand, coated in blood and sickly fluids now, was instant. The nightmare fuel was engorged upon the blood, draining thickly as the fuel enshrouded in massive talons, and the cold stung through sharply, straight through whatever protective nature his gloves could give him and biting right into the marrow of his bones.

It took a lot more out of Maxwell than he'd like to admit to not stick his hand back into the gorey warm mess of the corpses abdomen. Still and silent, unexpressive and sand flecking the smeared face paint, and yet even dead there was a heat to it that tempted his cold bones from the ever dipping lower temperatures. The canyon walls held little heat during this season, and only reflected the chill.

It took a long moment, to suck in a breath of death tinted air and stop himself from swaying a bit, the gnawing emptiness in him numb and yet eating through what little he had left, and Maxwell curled his hands, the oils curling and swishing about his fingers, thick and like a rotten jelly. He wouldn't let himself die out here from his body's starvation, nor the cold, and certainly not from the shadows of Them. 

He still had a ways to go.

With the skin gone it was much easier to see the rugged mess of the wounds, the relaxed muscle and then bare bone white of the ribcage, the inner cavity membrane just barely visible between the ribs, holding together the packed away organs. The lower membrane was obviously torn, the splay of open intestines and gore that curled around the slowly warming thermal stone, but while there were punctures here and there for the most part the upper chest was largely undamaged.

Briefly Maxwell splayed his fuel coated hands atop the muscle and bone, the ribs that stood out stark and white, some more cracked and ragged like teeth than any sort of inner protection, the lumpy faint hint of broken then healed bone from old injuries long past.

The nightmare fuel coalesced, solidifying in large, smoothly shaped talons, leaving faint smears of oil to mix in to the bleeding that spotted from where the skin had been peeled away. Raising his hands, dark, focused eyes sweeping over the ribcage, the muscles and membranes and bloody clotted wounds, Maxwell tilted his oil dripping claws, and carefully slid them down the sides of each rib. The shredded skin still attached parted from where the shadow blades touched, the bone slicing apart and shifting ever so slightly from the imbalance of weight and stability, and streams of bright blood flowed where the oils ate away into the still left veins, bursting the vessels in a slow drag that finally ended when the tips of his talons reached the bottom of the bone structure, cutting through thin wrinkled membrane and sending up another ghastly cloud of steamed heat, corpse stench. There was a slight shift inside the corpse, as bone weakened and untensed, held together insides shifting in place, and Maxwell shakily placed his hands atop the now loose bone and stretched muscle.

His own exhale came out with fogged up air, and the cold nipped and bit and numbed him now, kneeled legs unfeeling and his backs aches and pains being replaced by a fuzzy unknowing, just barely aware enough to acknowledge. The pounding in his chest seemed muffled in his ears, muffled to the grim determination that had set his face, and Maxwell ignored the way his hands shook, how his strength was rapidly leaving him; the nightmare fuel will guide him, _was_ guiding him, in all the steady assurance of Them and Their watchfulness.

He needed to be careful, to not tip that slippery slope even as he walked the edge, his every breath growing more and more strained with every sluggish beat of his heart, but Maxwell felt he was running out of time.

The shadows withered outside his field of vision, silent chatter, but he ignored Them, focused entirely on wrapping his claws, now shortened and more well molded, about the ribs, one firm to the sternum and the other snapping away excess muscle and flesh still trying to keep the body tied all together.

He didn't pause now, in pulling it away, completely away. Time was running short, his frail body wouldn't last him, and if he was going to even have a chance of this he needed to take it.

While there was flesh before him, warm raw flesh that wasn't entirely mawed by hounds and their infection prone fangs and tusks, there was still a bit of knowledge Maxwell has learned, gained from Their understanding that guided his nightmare fuel talons. Even if he had to resort to infusion, to consuming the nightmare fuel as an extra energy source, then he was more willing to take the chance right now, at this moment in time.

A human heart wasn't much when compared to the other beasts of this place, massive giants and the dinner plate sized beefalo organs, grotesque arachnids and even the wolves themselves, deep dark purple blood and the near blackened, vibrant lavender flesh of their cardiovascular system, but it was still human, and still a heart.

And, with the shadows watching and enabling the nightmarish rumble of memories he'd much rather forget in his mind, Maxwell still, he _still_ vaguely remembered what a human heart tasted like.

The one good thing from that was that no one seemed to remember alongside him...or, at the very least, Higgsbury just didn't bring it up. Probably didn't want to be reminded either, honestly; no one wanted to remember the Throne and its influence, its power, its horror show of cause and effect.

This should be enough, mixed thick with the last lingering bits of nightmare oils, and the old former Nightmare King's eyes were focused entirely upon what he was digging underneath for, shivering and trembling as his very own body started to give up, shut down as it ate itself alive.

No one would have to know, no one but himself and the shadows and the ever watchful Queen. It wasn't as if they all _had_ to know, that he found it viable to survive by consuming fellow survivors flesh, or more specifically their hearts.

He's done it before, he knew. Before, or after the portal, Maxwell could no longer remember or place a timeframe, but as if the rest of them were free from that sin.

He learned from watching Higgsbury, after all. And the shadows, They taught him the rest.

He will live, a shiver of giddy shadow influence that ran in sparks through his chest and made his every breath grow harsher, strain his already straining body, and no one will be the wiser.

The hounds killed Wes, after all, not him. Not, not _really_.

Take the heart, and then consume what he was inclined to believe was clean. Wash away with the last of the nightmare fuel, then claw his way out of this horrid little canyon. The mimes skeleton will be collected by passing curious wolves, to join with the rest of the massive bone piles littered about the desert, and Maxwell would be alive.

A part of him, hidden under the numbing shadows and fuel influence, wondered if he'd even make it back to camp with the state he was in. With the state he will be in, after this.

He's consumed the others before, as if another one of his created ravenous monsters of the Constant, as if another shrouded puppet of Them and Their gluttonous empty belly's, but-

-a part of him still recognized that he never truly _survived_ the process for very long.

For a moment, the plate of bone and strung tight flesh removed from atop the chest cavity, the strikes of sliced rib bones, clawed like uneven teeth from under bruised and bloodied skin, the broken collarbone and the softened, slit flesh of the throat, ragged and cut, coated in bubbled blood and empty of anything that had once made it move and express and radiate heat, be so very _alive-_

And then Maxwell blinked, once, a slow twice as his slightly dizzy eyesight tried to form itself back together, tried to steady. The bone was still in his fuel slicked claws, blood that drained faintly to soak into his already thick soaked sleeves, and Maxwell stared, and stared, and stared.

The first set of visible organs, under the thinly sliced membrane that packed it all up, were the lungs.

And thick tendrils of shadow were coiled, rooted into the fleshes very network.

His trembling was getting worse, the cold gone now, feeling faint and light headed, but Maxwell still reached out, the oils steading his arm, his shivering movements.

The shadows, thick and sticky like tar, were carved into the deflated flesh of the lungs. Brushing a talon down one rooted path smeared the tar, as if like a thick paint, and underneath were the grooves and eaten flesh of the organ itself, bumps of texture and faint swelling, the round marks of what could have even been tumors that peppered the in between of the two organs. 

When he raised his shaking hand back up to his face, dark eyes wide and mostly unseeing, the tar sluggishly dripped down his own fuel, not at all mixing, like oil upon water. It was cold, when it dribbled down to his sleeve and hit, frozen, against his skin, only to roll off and dribble to the dusty sand ground, shimmer and jiggle before going murky, still.

The lungs before him were completely eaten alive by the shadows, the oils, the grooves of carved flesh by the trails becoming more and more clear as the tar started to slip and pool together, drain into the hollows of the rest of the chest, free from the veined membranes that had kept everything in place. 

But, there was nowhere else the shadows touched. Slimy threads coiled up the tubing of the lungs, of the respiratory system, but stopped short, just below the ruined flesh from the slit Maxwell himself had carved in what felt to be hours ago. They tangled with the bloody mess of what he could only assume to be vocal cords, perhaps, _maybe_ , he just didn't know, had no clue whatsoever.

There was a light headed, thundering pounding in his head, and the nightmare fuel about his talons slicked and formed sharp, jagged as he shuddered in another breath.

For all that he was seeing, there wasn't enough time.

 _Act now, or die._

A shadow whisper, right behind him to the left, against his ear as the world shifted and wobbled, and Maxwell jerked his hand up, the vague feeling of not having the energy, relying on the shadows and Their ways, trusting in the untrustworthy-

And his talons snapped forward, dug between the slimy shadow wreathed lungs, wrapped tight about the solid heart, and pulled it free.

Or, attempted to.

A sudden shadowy pulse, as Maxwell locked up and realized why his breath was so caught up in his own lungs, why the nightmare fuel had slicked up from just his hands and coiled all the way to his elbow, reaching, seeking further. It wasn't quite betrayal, not when he already knew of Their tricky ways, and yet They caught him off guard anyway, exploiting his weakened, dying state for this last little party trick.

And it was a trick indeed, when Maxwell felt the force of a beat within his palm, when those shadow bathed, eaten alive lungs convulsed and suddenly half filled with rasping, bubbling air, when the corpse before him, near underneath his looming seized, when that previously empty, blood and mask painted face whipped up in an arch and glazed, glassy eyes flashed open to stare _straight at him-_

The sound that came from him was more than just a yell, horror and shock and the sheer grotesque imagery and movement under his very own hands and Maxwell tumbled back, scrambled away through the blood soaked sand and shuddering, heaving as he pressed his back to the rocky wall behind him.

The corpse was still, unmoving; not even a hint of a twitch, head having not moved once, no shift or tremble or convulsive fit. Torn open to the chilly air, gnawed upon and pulled apart by the seams by hound teeth and his nightmarish claws, and all Maxwell could do was shake, gasping for thin air as fog escaped his every breath.

It was very, very cold, and very, very silent.

A wave of nausea broke him out of it, broke him out into almost tumbling to the side as his balance left him in a sweep of forced light headedness, weakness that gripped his limbs and pulled him, yanked him down to the sand and pebbles underneath. It had him gagging, wheezing and trembling and it was too much for his frail body, too much overuse, too much abuse.

A part of him had known, from the beginning, that he wasn't going to get out of here by his own will and strength. Wes had the easy way out, dying like that, and Maxwell…

...had deluded himself into a plan that They must have found oh so damnably _funny!_

The body stayed still, undisturbed besides his flagrant disrespect of the dead, and it hadn't moved even once during his entire plan. It had never moved in the first place, and those blank, glazed eyes, bruised flesh and torn up body, the convulsive shudder of ripped apart, eaten alive organs that had pulsed and beat and _moved in his very hands-_

The shadow fuel was gone from him now, sullied away in his terror and staining the sand, the rocks, dissipating slowly through the atmosphere. It was only his gloves he saw now, worn and ruined and soaked in thick coats of blood, cold and chilled to the bone as he gagged and spit up bile, starving body shuddering in his sickened state, not enough in him to combat the shock response.

He didn't know when he was done, when the monochrome world stopped tilting topsy turvy and those glassy, accusing eyes and the feeling of smooth, convulsing flesh left his understanding, when it was only the nausea and numbing pains and the cold, the ever so fitful chill that had settled so deep inside him.

He didn't even have to be ripped open like Wes to have something settle in him!

The thought was funny, awfully funny as Maxwell wobbled and tried to keep gasping in thin breaths, his throat closing up, his everything choking and coiling tight, too tight in long lasting death throes. He didn't even have enough air to laugh, just the whistle rattle as his heart finally reached the end of its failure.

So bloody ruthless, he vaguely, hysterically thought. Why couldn't he just pass out like the rest of them, instead be teased with the thought of survival? Why can't he just lose it enough to not _feel_?

The shadows in the corners of his vision cackled, were still cackling from earlier, from the shadows he had allowed in for his own use, twisted just so easily as to get back at him. As if eating something, at this stage, would keep him alive.

He was just as much of a lost cause as Wes had been, from the get go, and the realization, understanding of that was almost _hurtful._

If he had enough to speak, he'd be doing so, admonishing the watching shadows, the every watching Queen for something so low as to tease him as he died. 

Then again, he's...he's done that too. It was...fun, in a way, and as that understanding slid into place, as his arm wobbled and he fought to not fall face first into his own sickness, Maxwell could only give a wobbly nod to the slithering darkness that were all around him, enthralled maybe.

He could get a bit of pride from that, having been entertaining enough.

...not something he'd be informing the others of, no. Just between him and Them and the Queen.

Forcing himself, pushing past what his physical body couldn't provide any longer, Maxwell slowly hauled himself around, sand coating his bloody trousers now, streaks of ill used nightmare fuel splattered across his sleeves. The corpse of the mime was still there, still opened, cut open in a ragged, oh so careful way, cast away chest plate of oozing flesh and bone, the stone cold pebble surface of the thermal stone rising from cooling gut tracks, those tunneled in, chewed upon lungs brazen to open air, the human heart, dark with engorged blood and yet still too damn human, half tugged away and out.

He was an idiot, Maxwell realized, on his hands and knees and forcing through the fact that numbness was overtaking him, that cold surging wave coming up closer, closer as it had been lapping at the edges of himself for days now. He vaguely wondered if the others felt that too, or if they dropped unconscious beforehand, a bit of the Queens blessing as to avoid the actual pains of death.

As he sat there, heaving thin breathes, shuddering as his chest ached, as his vision and balance wobbled and the weakness spread and he _still_ stubbornly fought it, still kept himself from collapsing into the dust and blood, _not like this, I didn't want to die like this-!_

And then, in the distance, past the ringing in his head and that haunting faint melody, the loud stuttered, slowing thundering of his own rotten heart in his chest, Maxwell could hear something.

It started small, quiet, before quickly picking up traction, building stronger and stronger, and already the old man knew what it was, and knew from the sniggering and giggles of hidden shadows that he would not die before it got close enough.

They still wanted him alive, a little finale for whatever grotesque show they had lured him into acting. Willing he may have been, but he had thought he'd be rewarded with more life in the end, or at least an opportunity to fight for it.

Maxwell squinted open his dizzy eyes, the black and white smearing, the bright neon reds of dried blood and soaked sweater and the gore pile of what Wes had become under his shaking hands, and finally settled in sickening spiral to the sand beside them both.

The razor still sat there, coated in a thin layer of blood. It's slit one throat already, Maxwell painfully thought, that almost faint amusement curling faded within him as his vision wavered dark and almost, almost blind, what's another for today?

Out through the canyons, echoing and rushing after the trail thick scent of blood and gore only a few miles from their dens, the hounds bayed.


End file.
